Desc: Romantic Sex Story: Chapter 1 - A man loves and nearly loses forever the woman that makes his life complete, but in the struggle to regain her will everything else be lost in the process? Started over a year ago, this was intended to be one of the 'first' Lovett County stories - read my Blog for more details. It is primarily a story of love and unusual relationships, and there is a good deal of sex, but probably no 'scary codes'. It starts fairly slow and the first two chapters are a bit sad.

I knew something had gone quite terribly wrong when Tiny showed up at the fire station to take me out to lunch on a New Years Eve. Not that I have anything against having lunch ... or being seen in public with Tiny (all 6'4" of him), but Tiny was a fairly private sort of guy. We've been friends for over a year, and we had never actually gone out and done "guy things" or for that matter, even gone out for a meal. This changed all that — and I knew something was up, and unfortunately I just had an inkling of the cause ... and didn't have to wait long to hear it confirmed.

"Pete, Allison's drinking again," Tiny said without preamble just as I was taking my first sip of my lemonade.

"Shit. Are you sure?" Of course he was sure ... he had to be. Otherwise he'd have never ridden over here, collected me from work and the two of us sitting in some dump that probably hasn't passed a food inspection since the Paleozoic era. There is a reason why firemen are world class barbeque cooks, the restaurants near fire houses are usually gawd awful (not to mention they're also usually quite fire prone — it makes us too nervous to eat if we think our professional services might be needed at any moment).

Tiny continued, "I saw her on the back of Willis's bike leaving the Bert Wheelers on Beechnut with a couple of bags in her arm. I didn't think it was her at first, but I knew it was definitely Willis and his bike — that converted Honda job. I was a light or two behind them most of the way back to the apartments; he ran at least one red light, all of the stop signs and rode enough like an absolute idiot that I had no doubt it was really him. Finally I got just a good enough of a look at her that I'm sure it was Allison. I was really, really, hoping that I was wrong."

So was I, especially about the Willis part. I'd had a run-in before with him over much this same issue three months ago, and I thought it had been resolved ... I guess not. I had been so busy these last few months that I hadn't spent hardly any socializing time with Tiny at all. Tiny is an extremely private sort of guy and not the type to leave a note on your door or a message on the answering machine, even if he is your best friend. Apparently he had been trying to get hold of me for quite awhile but hadn't been able to catch me at home.

Willis, or rather Robert Jason Willis Jr, was the hapless nephew of some rich fat cat Dallas real estate developer whom, after his 2nd failed attempt at college, was shunted off to watch over one of the family's lesser investments, the cheap 20-odd unit apartment complex where Tiny and I rented (well actually Tiny gets his rent free in return for acting as an assistant manager and onsite "Security"). Since actually doing any hands-on managerial work is below Willis's dignity, he dumps most of the paperwork off onto Tiny. This leaves him with more time for attending to the 24/7 party that seems to run at his apartment, cultivating his drug connections, and his latest flummery - posing as one bad-ass "1%"er biker. I say it's nonsense, because no actual 'outlaw motorcycle gang' ™ would touch Willis with a ten foot beer keg hose. Tiny would know, because he knows every major piece of scooter trash in the city — he rode with them all for over a decade.

Tiny offered one last observation, "Sorry. Anyone else and I wouldn't have mentioned it ... but I owe you." He then started a lengthy examination of his hamburger to see if it needed a few jabs from his belt knife before it would remain still and consent to be eaten.

There are hundreds of stories about Tiny, and most of them are actually true the best I can tell, especially the most improbable ones, despite the fact that many would seem to be contradictions. At a looming 6'4," full heavy beard and weighing probably near 300 pounds, Tiny is never seen except when wearing his "colors" (the badge of a true motorcycle enthusiast), his worn & torn blue jean jacket bearing a large embroidered emblem of the Grateful Dead's "Ice Cream Kid" and the club name "The Fooles" (a club of one) and a US Navy SEALS patch on his right sleeve.

It's rumored he has ridden with both the Angels and the Banditos, but he's never said ... and anyone who knows for sure won't say either. Nowadays Tiny teaches bicycle safety classes for several different elementary schools, and organizes, seemingly effortlessly, charity bike runs to benefit any of a dozen worthwhile causes, or monthly "Fill the Helmet" fund drives for the Children's Hospital. He is probably the only person I've ever heard of who can get the outlaw clubs, civilian bike clubs and the police bike club all to attend the same functions with no pain, stress or itching desires to perform mayhem. Hurray for Tiny!

He won't talk at all about his past. I'm 99% sure that he was ex-military, Navy and probably something related to Special Ops. Probably SEALs due his jacket patch, but he keeps that part of his life very hidden. If pressed he'll say he did "bad," but had a life-changing experience and now tries to do "good." What his 'Road to Damascus' was, no one knows. Tiny certainly won't say ... and he doesn't talk much anyway. I've never ridden any bike bigger or faster than a 10-speed Schwinn, my ride is an EMS wagon, and that is where I first met Tiny.

It was a Wednesday, only my 3rd day on the job with the Houston Fire Department (HFD), Emergency Medical Services division. I, Peter Wells, was a newly hired Emergency Medical Technician straight from the Fire Academy and still used to civilian life. I had just finished 4 years of duty as an Army Medic and was an alumnus of the infamous 'Goat School' at Fort Hood. The final exam is they shoot a real live bleating goat — if you can keep it alive for 30 minutes you pass, if not you fail. They don't do that anymore ... much too politically incorrect, but I admit it was good real life training.

The HFD at that point in history was having trouble getting and retaining EMT's due to the buereaucratic attitude that they were 'Firemen first and EMT's a very distant second'. Accordingly they were running trained firemen through their EMT training later as an afterthought ... and with a low success rate, so there was a constant critical shortage.

I was part of a new pilot program where they recruited ex-military medics and nurses who had the right attitude and training to get all of the endless EMT training and needed certifications then run them through Fire School. A good idea that worked ... they should have kept it (but that's another story).

Riding to the scene of an auto accident that day we received an update report on the radio: a car in a hurry to get his wife in labor to the hospital runs stop sign and doesn't see the guy on the motorcycle currently already in the intersection; they collide, and the car (as usual) wins. Bleeding badly from his right arm, shoulder and leg the cyclist (Tiny) staggers over to the car undoubted looking like some grim Viking refugee from Valhalla to see if they are alright. The driver of the car, the husband, sees Tiny and is certain that he's going to get clubbed like a baby seal ... pisses his pants and then faints. The wife, whose water broke about the time they hit Tiny, was screaming like the Furies and started to do the bludgeoning herself, whacking her unconscious husband with her handbag in an attempt to revive him.

Bemused, Tiny was still standing by the door when we pulled up with all of the sirens wailing. He then calmly asked for us to "check on the pregnant lady first, it looks like she's in some distress," and then he immediately passed out onto the pavement. Come to find out, in the crash he suffered a cut to his Axillary artery and was in some danger of bleeding out. I tended to Tiny, got him stabilized and an IV hooked up while my senior training partner looked on, and once he could tell I had the situation well under control he went to check the vitals of the woman (still shaking and beating on her husband) and then reviving him. We then called for the backup EMS unit from our station to come and pickup the pregnant lady while we took Tiny to the hospital.

That should have been the end of the matter, but this was merely the start. Later that afternoon while cleaning and restocking at the station, I noticed that in the hurry to check Tiny's shoulder wound and locate and clamp off the bleeding artery, I had pretty much cut off his denim jean riding jacket, his "Colors." They were bloody, pretty much soaked actually, and a ragged mess. Anyone else would have thrown them out without a second thought, but I had learned just enough of biker culture from hearing dorm chatter while in the Army that I knew this was extremely important to him. It took three washings to get most of the blood stains out, and I found that one of the 3rd Unit crew had a wife that sewed and got her (for $20) to reassemble the jean jacket from where I had cut it all apart. By Friday evening I had the repaired jacket back and I took it with me to the hospital after my shift ended.

Tiny was doing well. Except for a few nasty cuts and the resulting blood loss, there was nothing broken and no internal damage. He had been waiting for the final doctor's ok to release signature on his forms and was otherwise ready to leave the hospital, so it was excellent timing. Upon seeing his Colors, more or less clean and reassembled, he nearly cried and gave me a huge bear hug that nearly squashed me (I'm nowhere near his huge size) and he vowed eternal thanks and obligations of future debt. Wow, just seeing him that happy made it worth the time (and the $20 I didn't really have at the time).

We talked a bit about ourselves and our jobs, I mentioned that I was new to the city and had just left the Fire Academy dorms and was renting a dump efficiency apartment by the week that was probably smaller than the hospital room we were in. Tiny gave me the address of the apartments where he worked and then showed me the choice of the two available units that were in the relatively best condition, and offered a sweetheart of a deal on monthly rent. I chose the upstairs one with the recently repaired plumbing and a decent working AC unit and moved in the next day. I assumed that we were now even. Silly me, we weren't even close.

After a few weeks on an intense OJT (on the job training) schedule where I was essentially nearly always on duty and lived for a full week at a time at the station, things started to finally calm down. My direct shift trainers had a good look at my skills and prior training and reported back to the chef instructor that I knew my shit and could be trusted with sharp instruments without injuring myself or others. Soon I was on the normal schedule for a Unit Crew, three days on (24/7) at the station day and night, and then three days off. It was surprising the number of classes and seminars that always seemed to get scheduled for those days off, but I still managed to start putting together a home life (ok, studying usually, but at least I was home). In six months or so I felt I could get completed with the last of my training requirements to become an intermediate EMT-I (most folks usually took a year to get out of "training" status) and then start another hard year of classes and training to test to EMT-P (Paramedic) which was pretty much the top of the normal EMT tree.

I didn't go to bars or have much nightlife. I worked, came home, studied some more and occasionally visited Tiny every week or two, watched a game together on TV and discussed the importance of first-rate home brewed root beer (Tiny's one remaining vice). So things went for a couple of months, and then I meet Allison Blair.

Like Tiny, I met Allison 'professionally', but fortunately this time she wasn't the patient. She worked the retail industry as an Assistant Manager at an upscale woman's clothing store that was part of a small but growing chain. She had called 911 when a customer collapsed in the store (nothing serious fortunately, probably just dizziness due to low blood sugar) and after the embarrassed customer had left I had a few minutes to chat with Allison at the checkout counter while filling out my paperwork.

Since by nature I tend to be extremely shy and I'm conscious of my relative shortness as a male (I'm only about 5'8," and I would have preferred to have gone into the Navy instead of the Army, but I was scared I'd get immediately sent off to Submarine School) so I tend to compensate by coming over to women as extremely self-assured with a cocky attitude. In my defense, I'm also in excellent physical condition due to my military experience and the uncertain needs of my job (firemen probably pump way more weights than police do). In her case, I was awed by her exceptional good looks. She was a stunning beauty nearly 6 feet tall with long "dirty dishcloth blonde" hair, at least a 9 on anyone's scale and obviously totally way out of my league. Even with no ring on her finger, I doubted I had even the slightest chance with her, so I did the only thing I could think of to do under the circumstances ... I immediately jokingly proposed marriage to her. To both my delight and horror she instantly accepted.

Mercifully we didn't actually run out like the two love crazed kids we were and immediately tie the knot, and we actually managed to have a few dates before her personal items started to slowly, but surely, drift into "our apartment." Within a month, she had given up her own small apartment and we were living together, but it was almost over between us even before it really began.

When two people start a close relationship the first few months are really all about learning what things the other person does that bug the shit out of you. In my case, I'm a compulsive "neat-freak," where she definitely tended towards being a slob. She was also rather emotionally 'high maintenance' who felt the need that we ought to be doing things together every time we were home together. My work hours (or rather days — three on then three off) meant that I'd only be home half the time — I also usually worked every single major holiday (the highest peak periods for calls for EMS service). She was also extremely impulsive and had an unfortunate tendency to job hop. Every few months she would decide that the path to becoming a full Store Manager was always a little better or easier at some other company and she would suddenly change jobs without any prior discussion between us. These were all rather annoying to me at times, but I thought I could deal with that. We constructed some rules about housecleaning that both of us could live with but there was nothing I could do about my work schedule and she understood and tried to accept that.

Then there was the matter of Allison's drinking, an ongoing crisis that only I seemed to recognize or acknowledge the existence of, which caused regular problems for us throughout our entire relationship.

Looking back now, much older (wiser?) and with 20/20 hindsight, I'm inclined to blame much of her problems on her relationship with her father (also an alcoholic and who may or may not have abused her as a child). She was definitely raised in a troubled house where both her parents drank like fish and fought seemingly endlessly. She was smart and very pretty but also lonely and troubled. A small legacy from an aunt plus a minor scholarship was enough to get her out of the house and into a state university. There she scraped out a degree in English and learned to party like there was no tomorrow. Fine, that's what college (and military dorm life), is for ... but after college was over the old habits didn't die off. She started the day with a drink, had more as soon as she got home from work and wanted to drink until either late at night or early in the morning or until she passed out. Not good.

I will admit, I had noticed that if she had a few drinks in her, she was considerably more affectionate. Hell, with a few drinks in her she was a raging tigress in bed. She would frequently initiate lovemaking eagerly giving me head and swallowing my cum as if it were the finest liqueur then getting me hard again she would ride me to her own climax, seemingly for hours. After a few more drinks, she would admit that she enjoyed anal sex and she would take it in her ass nearly indefinitely (if I could get hard again a 3rd time). I must admit that after having little to no sex life for the last few years, I was enjoying this experience, and willing to accept her drinking habits ... if they could be moderated somewhat.

I need at this point to mention that I'm certainly not an anti-drinking zealot. I enjoy wine with dinner and don't mind having a beer or two when watching a game on TV. But as a working EMS tech I've seen the carnage that a drunk driver can cause, and I've pulled at least one drunk (or their victims) out of a wreck car nearly every week of my career. I was determined that I would not have this occur with the woman I loved.

Moderation became the burning issue. I decreed and remained firm with these rules: absolutely no drinks in the morning (especially before driving to work), no stopping off with the gals after work nights when I was working (again, no drinking before driving), and no late night drinking at home if one of us worked the next morning. She would agree in principle, promise to reform, but always somehow fail and suffer a lapse. When I repeatedly caught her, she would deny or misrepresent the facts. When those failed to sway me, she would have emotional outbursts and throw such a fit that things would remain chilly between us for a few days. I would be accused of trying to manipulate and ruin her life like her father, but I would never get provided with much in the way of details. After one extremely bad scene where things got bad enough where I actually started to pack some clothes to go and stay at the fire station for a few days, she was broken to tears and pleaded with me not to leave her. She vowed to control or severely limit her drinking and, for awhile, I think she really tried.

Things were much better between us for the next few months, enough so that I started to consider making my proposal to her real, and I quietly started to look for an engagement ring.

The week before the Fourth of July started out well for me, in fact things were going quite fantastically for me. I was officially off of training status (at least 6 weeks earlier than any of the other new EMT-I's that started at the same time I did. I was greatly surprised by this because it definitely seemed to me that the Captain in charge of training for all of the EMS units in our district was not particularly enamored of me. When I was called into his office I wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn that I was going to either be staying on training status or even be let go entirely. Instead he surprised me by giving me the good news in person and I would also be getting a not unsubstantial pay raise — not bad for city government work.

Talking with him privately, I found out a few interesting things. First, he had been quite hard on me (and would probably stay so) because the quality of my work was markedly above average (trauma patients in my care had a statistical 20% higher chance of survival than the citywide EMS average!). Not quite all of our upper management was composed of mouth-breathing idiots he warned. There were some clever Fire Station Chiefs or EMS Division Directors out there who would be trying to poach me and get me transferred to their stations. Expect it - it would be likely to happen in the next six months or so and probably to a higher trauma incident district, such as a bad neighborhood with higher crime with regular stabbings and shootings. This could be good for my career if I concentrated on getting my advanced certifications to become an EMT-P (a full Paramedic and then the additional certifications to become a Trainer). If I pushed myself aggressively, he told me, I could easily be sitting in this Captains seat within 10 years. Not bad for a short unpopular kid that never had the bucks to go to college!

Thrilled with this news, my station boss sent me home a day earlier than my shift would end to celebrate and with a newly enlarged paycheck in my hand, I paid a visit to all of the local jewelers until I found what I thought was the perfect engagement ring. With a few last stops for a nice bottle of wine, the fixings for a fine surf & turf meal with a rich dessert and a bouquet of flower I was on my way home. Getting home nearly 24 hours earlier than expected I was looking forward to a four day weekend we would always remember ... just not the way I would have anticipated.

Getting home around 5 p.m., I started to assemble the makings for dinner but delayed the final cooking steps until after 6, as I was expecting Allison sometime after 6:15 p.m. Time passed and it became after 7 p.m. Concerned, I called her store, hoping to get the Evening Manager or one of the staff and was told, to my surprise, by the salesgirl who answered the phone that Allison had stopped working there a few weeks ago.

I was flabbergasted. I had known nothing of this. On the days when I had been home, that she would have worked, she had dressed normally as for work in her suit dress and left at the normal time. Job hunting, I now supposed, or else she had already started work for another retail chain once again. By 8 p.m., dinner was pretty much ruined and I was in a panic. I was worried about her absence and fearing the worst (this was back in the late 1980's when cell phones, and even pagers were still uncommon). I had called everyone I knew to call and no one had seen or heard from her. Sometime shortly after 9 p.m., I became too nervous to remain in the apartment and I started walking back and forth to the parking lot to see if I could see her car coming.

Sometime about my 4th or 5th trip, I noticed that there was a party going on at Willis's apartment. Not much of a surprise. There was a party there every weekend but it was a bit louder than usual for a Thursday, even for him. I didn't like the guy much (I had heard lots of stories about him and his lifestyle from Tiny) but he stayed out of my way and we only rarely saw each other in passing. About the 6th or the 7th circuit to and from the parking lot I was agitated enough that I thought I would finally go disturb Tiny and see if he knew anything about where Allison was or what she'd been recently up to.

I started over towards Tiny's apartment on the other side of the complex and, in doing so, I had to pass right by Willis's. His unit was downstairs, on the back side of the Management office, in the center of the complex. As I got closer the sounds of blaring metal rock grew louder along with the sounds of people laughing and having a good time. The patio window was wide open letting out all of the noise but, because there was an eight foot privacy fence around the patios of all of the downstairs units, I could not see anything inside. I had almost completely walked past when I stopped dead in my tracks, I thought I heard Allison's voice ... or rather the husky screaming voice Allison used when she's potted to the gills and getting royally fucked!

I moved back to right up against the fence but the problem was there were really too many different noise sources. A booming stereo, a TV blasting what sounded like a porno video, and six or eight other different voices yelling and laughing. I just couldn't be sure it was her! I gave up and walked around to the front and knocked on the door. Heck, I just about had to beat the door down to get anyone to hear it. Eventually some weedy guy I never seen before, shirtless in jeans holding a beer answered the door. It took three tries to get him to hear that I was looking for some chick. He didn't know her name, but yeah there was some chick here. He then shut the door and went to check. I should have followed, but some tiny spec of self-preservation stayed my hand and I stayed outside and waited.

I did hear a loud "Oh Shit" or two which was not auspicious, and my fears were confirmed a minute later when the door reopened to find Allison being unsteadily supported by two guys, with a smirking Willis standing behind them. It was obvious that she had been having sex and had been hurriedly (and sloppily) redressed when I came to the door. Her tank top on inside out and backwards, her shorts were buttoned off-kilter at an awkward angle with no underwear (it's apparently hard to dress a nearly passed out woman while she is lying on a bed).

To this day I thank my guardian angel who stayed my anger and my hand because, at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to put some of the other skills I had learned in the Army to hard and painful use. I just might have taken that first step forward to start breaking skulls when the large paw of Tiny's hand grabbed my shoulder from behind. He had come out from his unit unseen by me when I had stopped to knock on Willis' door and with his perfect sense of timing, had known when to step in.

"Good, there she is, Pete. I'll help you get her home." With his other arm he took hold of her and as we took hold of her the door quickly shut (and locked) behind us. I again started to think about going in there and confronting the situation but Tiny read my body language (or thoughts) and said "Not now, this isn't the time for it. She needs you now and you have to take care of her first. We'll worry about Willis later, he'll keep."

Tiny was right. We got her up the stairs and home, where she instantly passed out the second she hit the bed. Tiny stayed for awhile and we discussed the situation. I was angry, felt hurt, cheated and somehow diminished. It seemed as if I had been kicked all over and nothing would ever be alright ever again. Eventually Tiny got the point through to me that while much of the circumstances were indeed fully Allison's fault, she had been (to a degree) taken advantage of and possibly even raped. She was clearly incoherently drunk, way past the point of consenting to sex (even assuming she did at that stage). He advised me to listen to her, avoid yelling and try and help her see if the relationship could be salvaged. At that moment I felt that we no longer had a relationship but I agreed that I would hear her out.

Tiny left with a final word about Willis. "Don't do anything ... let me handle him."

I didn't get any sleep that night and I packed my clothes for a lengthy stay at the fire station as I anticipated that things would not go well in the morning. They didn't, if anything they went worse. Allison claimed to remember nothing whatsoever of the events of the afternoon and evening, and when pressed to the breaking point with the facts of the issue, pleaded 'blackout'.

She had drunk so much that day that she couldn't remember any of the events of the day past mid afternoon. She was forced to admit that yes, she had lost her most recent job when her boss caught her with alcohol on her breath in the morning once too often. She had been job hunting most mornings and had found out Wednesday that she had received a job offer to start with a new company on Monday, hence her wanting to "kick up her heels a bit" and party a bit Thursday while I was off at work. She further admitted to poor judgment for accepting an offer to have a drink with Willis but denied that she would have had sex with him under any circumstances, even drunk (or in an alcoholic blackout).

I just could not convince her that I felt strongly that she had cheated on me and that her recent behavior had made it nearly impossible for me to trust her. Mostly importantly, I did not tell her that in my pocket was the engagement ring that I had planned on offering her that evening, had not events transpired otherwise.

We were at an impasse. She raged and screamed — I picked up my suitcases, left for the fire station and stayed there for the next week. My Captain quite understood, because Firemen and Police have insanely high divorce rates and even the relationships that survive are sorely taxed at times.

Things were quiet for the next few days. Tiny had apparently put the fear of God in Willis such that if he was caught even looking at her again, all of his body parts would be unlikely to be ever found again. And it worked, Tiny called to tell me Sunday that Allison had knocked on Willis's in the early afternoon and he had refused to admit her and she spent the next hour yelling and screaming abuse at him, accusing him of fucking up the only good thing she'd ever had, etc. I was glad to hear it! This did give me a bit of my pride back, but not enough to take her phone calls which came at least several times a day and only increased in emotional intensity.

I was in an emotional quandary myself; I felt nothing but hurt and pain, and the longer things drew out the pain of her absence seemed to gain the winning hand. My heart felt it had just been cut out of my body and was flopping there on the floor in front of me while I tried to figure out where there was a bandage big enough to tape it back into place. I couldn't sleep, didn't have any appetite and began to believe that nothing in the world would ever be entirely right ever again.

Finally, the next Saturday morning, Allison showed up at the fire station and refused to leave until she saw me. I came out and we ended up just looking at each other for a good couple of minutes, neither of us able to get a coherent word out. Frankly, she looked like hell. If I hadn't had much in the way of sleep it certainly looked like she had been getting even less. My mouth opened and shut a few times but nothing was coming out, intelligent or otherwise. All of the hundreds of things I had wanted to say to her and had thought about in the long hours of the night were missing, the words just trapped somewhere ... and not anywhere where my tongue was going to find them anytime soon.

At last Allison broke the deadlock of silence with probably the only five words that really actually mattered, "I'm sorry... ," followed by a pause and then, "I love you."

"I love you too," I replied, and we just fell into each others arms, held each other and let the tears flow. At some point I vaguely recall the station captain coming out and telling us to 'go home' and that he'd not expect me back to work for a couple of days, and so we did in her car, leaving mine at the station and the ride in near absolute silence.

There were still massive relationship problems to be resolved but we had a clear unspoken agreement that we were going to resolve them together ... just as soon as we got out of bed.

The make-up sex was beyond fabulous and way past fantastic too. We hadn't made it three steps into the apartment before she was on her knees in front of me and pulling my pants down to my ankles. She wouldn't release me an inch until I had blown my first load of the day down her coaxing throat and swallowed every drop of my copious load (it had been two weeks since we had last had sex). From then on it was 'Around the World' in bed, with every sexual position we could think of, performed on every orifice available. After I'd come the third time (in her tight ass with her on all fours), I thought I was about done for awhile or at least until we'd had a good rest but Allison was primed for still more. Without skipping a beat she turned around, and without hesitation, took my wilting cock right into her mouth and sucked it back into hardness again. This was something she had never done before, while she did occasionally enjoy anal she had never touched my cock afterward, except perhaps to clean it with a wet washcloth.

As she cleaned my now rock hard cock her eyes looked up to meet mine and uttered some words I would never forget for the rest of my life, "I love you, and I will always love you and belong only to you. I am yours totally, utterly and irrevocably. Please never, ever leave me again."

That said she resumed sucking my cock as if she were a woman possessed, and despite my utter exhaustion she coaxed one further semen explosion into her awaiting throat, as she had managed to deep throat me for perhaps the first time ever (I'm only about 'average' cock size, but am blessed with a stout girth that gave her trouble handling the last inch or two). Exhausted, I fell right asleep with her head on my chest but when I awoke refreshed a few hours later it was due to her talented tongue once again coaxing my cock back into life. She was enormously successful and this was pretty much the cycle of events for the next few days.

The real number one issue between us was her utterly out of control drinking, and this was not a problem that was going to get instantly solved, but for the first time in her life she began to acknowledge that she did have a problem. It was agreed that we would try and limit her drinking as she believed that she wasn't an alcoholic and prohibition wasn't really necessary. I wasn't quite so sure. I reluctantly agreed to this (some progress being better than none) and her drinking remained curtailed for some time, probably about three months, before I noticed indications that voluntary self-restraint wasn't working. This was also about the time that my work and classroom training schedule requirements exploded on me. This meant that I found myself home even less than usual and more exhausted than ever before.

Those three months where Allison could and did limit her drinking revealed a completely new and different side of her. When sober, Allison displayed far less self-assuredness and confidence. She seemed delicate, often having trouble making decisions (even minor ones) and could easily become rattled or even near paralyzed by the fear that she would make a wrong one, — or worse, one that would make me potentially unhappy. There were things I liked about this new Allison but there were just as many things I missed about the old self-confident Allison that now seemed to be gone, especially her former vivaciousness.

Her internal world appeared to be a smaller and scarier place now, with the possibilities of life's little fun adventurers now being replaced by a newer (or much older) viewpoint that around each new corner there might instead be a monster waiting to pounce. When I was home she became 'clingy', quite out of character for her previously, and while she never rejected a hint for lovemaking, these occasions rarely now became marathon sessions, as she would now prefer just to be held after a single lovemaking. When I was away at work, she would more and more often sleep with all of the lights on, if she slept much at all.

I believe now that her complete and utter fear of making another big mistake and possibly losing me again contributed to her relapse into drinking heavily again. Then the guilt from that drove her into even greater episodes of severe binge drinking, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

With her reduced alcohol consumption, her work performance did begin to improve. She had started at another new company immediately after our reconciliation, and this new job did seem to suit her a bit better. Her new boss seemed likeable and considerate, and kept the atmosphere at work light and relaxed. Her future chances for promotion to a Shift Manager position seemed excellent. I thought this would help to boost her confidence, and for awhile it certainly seemed to. Bits of the happier 'old' Allison soon started to regularly reappear and I almost believed that things were nearly back to normal. Then I got a surprise phone call while I was at home one Monday morning on one of my off-day days, from Pamela, the Store Manager at Allison's workplace.

She introduced herself, and then wasted no time in dropping the bomb on me. "Are you and Allison having relationship problems? Is there some trouble there at home I need to be concerned about that explains her behavior here at work?"

"Huh? What?" I stammered in confusion. "As far as I knew there is nothing currently happening that should be a problem to her, let alone one that should be causing any situations at work. Why, what is happening?"

She then told me, no surprise, that Allison was drinking again — a couple of margaritas at lunch and then a few more with the girls at when she got off of work at five o'clock. Already my warning lights were going off in my head, since she had told me she told me she didn't get off until after six, and often needed to stay late. In addition during the workday she had been seen several times drinking from a small flask in the stockroom.

This was not good, and could quickly lead back to the problems we had had earlier. I thanked Pamela for the information and I briefly gave a somewhat sanitized history of Allison's problems with alcohol, to which Pam offered a great deal of advice ... much of which I wish now I had followed more carefully and completely. In short, alcohol 'rationing' as she put it, simply was probably not going to work in Allison's case, she seemed to need it too desperately, only cutting her off completely 100% (and keeping her off) was likely to have any positive effect. Above all, Pam stressed, Allison needed to be taken to AA — forcibly if need be.

Also, we both needed a vacation, bad timing or not for my work, Pam thought I should get her out of town for a week or two and away from the mostly empty house, hopefully long enough for new (sober) habits to have a chance of sinking in. Her job would still be open for her upon her return. (What a great boss!)

This gave me quite a bit to think about. Yes, the timing was bad, very bad, for me to take any vacation time at the moment. I had been with the HFD for just a little over a year at that point and I did have almost all of my accrued vacation time unused, the problem was my EMT-P classes. Allison needed two full weeks of my attention, day and night, but the most time I could take right now immediately was about 8 days until my next scheduled test for the current block of the study program. If I missed or rescheduled that test, I would have effectively lost my last 2 months of crammed study. In conversations that afternoon with my Station Captain, the Senior Training Chief, and also with Tiny, they all advised "tests be damned — give your woman the attention she needs" — but I was too fixated upon getting that promotion as fast as possible and I thought those eight days would be enough.

I was wrong, and I think I knew it at the time, but I had convinced myself otherwise. I requested and got the eight days of vacation leave, and then suitcases packed for a long driving trip I left the house right at 5 p.m. and went to the Mexican Restaurant & Cantina where Pam assured me that Allison was was every evening. Let the games begin!

To say that Allison didn't appreciate being grabbed by surprise by her arm and be towed literally kicking and screaming out of a crowded bar (and away from two gentleman admirers that had been happily buying her drinks) would be an understatement. She yelled and screamed and called me every curse name in her book. It improved even less when I grabbed her purse from her, upended it and found a mostly empty metal hip flask with vodka in it. Thank goodness there were no condoms, at least. Caught, she turned sullen and became withdrawn from me and my probing questions.

"Smile," I said, "you're on vacation for the next week," as I poured out the last ounce or two from the flask unto the roadway. The flask itself went into the trashcan of the first gas station we later stopped at. "And enjoy that last bit of aftertaste from your Margarita, because as long as I have anything to say about it, that drink was your last."

The mood was ugly in the car for at least the next two hundred miles.

We drove through San Antonio on I-10 going West and kept going and going, stopping only for gas, food and bathroom breaks. Allison remained quiet but surly, once refusing to leave the gas station bathroom until I got the spare key from the attendant and frog marched her back to the car. When yelling failed, she began to beg and cajole. When that failed she pleaded and cried ... to no avail.

"The next drink you take will be your last with me as far as I'm concerned. Make up your mind: your drinking or our relationship?" I would tell her, usually about every hour; and usually she had no answer. I drove all night and reached El Paso by mid-morning. I had done my early Army Medic training here at Fort Bliss and I remembered a suitable fleabag drive-in motel with nothing but surrounding miles of desert and not a beer or bottle to be had for love or money; that would suit the situation perfectly!

We slept in separate beds for the first (and only time) we were together. I did make a point of hiding the car keys in case she got the notion to club me with the motel desk lamp and take off in the car in search of a drink (I wouldn't have put it at all past her at that moment in time).

The road trip continued. New Mexico turned into Arizona and the late autumn heat was just enough to defrost the iciness in the car. Allison began to relax a bit and started to enjoy herself, despite sniffy claims to the contrary. She shared my bed that night in Tucson, but we did not make love. Upon her request the next morning, we detoured off to see the famous Wild West town of Tombstone, and while she was painfully itching to have a drink at the infamous Crystal Palace we both made do with a Sarsaparilla (nasty stuff, but wild westerny and non-alcoholic). By the time we stopped for the night, just across the California border, she was sleeping with her head in my lap and, for the first time on our vacation, we made love, slowly and unhurriedly. We had sex every night thereafter but I think this particular bout of lovemaking was special because it was a reaffirmation that we deeply loved each other and neither could really bear the thought of us being separate.

I'll spare the lengthy details of the rest of the vacation other than to say we made it as far as San Francisco (where we did leave pieces of our hearts, and vowed to return someday) before we had to drive home in a 48 hour non-stop frenzy via Las Vegas, which attracted our hearts not at all; we didn't even stop for gas there. We made it back to Houston with literally only 30 minutes to spare before my scheduled testing time.

I somehow nearly aced the test despite no sleep for 3 days and 'crammed' by either reading in the car while Allison drove or having Allison read my textbooks aloud to me while I drove. Madness, but I'd make that trip all over again in a heartbeat. It was too short.

Those glorious eight days of 'our vacation' were the high-water mark of our relationship. We returned to my lengthy and awkward work and study schedule and Allison began to work nearly as hard herself in order to recover her boss's previous good impressions of her. Things weren't bad at her work, but there was now an obvious strain in her working relationships with her direct supervisor that didn't entirely go away. She did not get that promotion to Shift Supervisor and there were only vague hints that such a promotion would be at all likely to occur anytime soon. Allison's discouragement began to grow and she even began to hint that she thought it was time to change jobs once more, to start new somewhere else and without the baggage. I told her to hang on and show some loyalty to her boss, and for now she did.

When Allison had been sober for a month, she remarked that 'this was the longest she had been without a drink since she was 15 years old!' She did have some alcohol withdrawal symptoms, her hands noticeably shook at times, even a month later, and her temper became quite short as if she was occasionally in physical pain. It was obvious that staying sober was a daily battle for her and the nights when she was alone were apparently even worse. When the urge to go have a drink started became too powerful for her she would call me at work. At least several times a week I would get her late night phone call at the fire station or a message to call her back ASAP when I returned from an EMS call. Soon it got to the point where I would just call her several times a night just to reassure and comfort her. There were good days and bad days, and I was beginning to worry that the good days weren't occurring frequently enough.

It was the week of Thanksgiving when I think the wheels started to come off the tracks and Allison lost her battle against the bottle and began to drink again.

That Thanksgiving holiday was pretty much a disaster for us both. I still had about half of my training course left to go and my long expected but feared transfer occurred right after Halloween. My new fire station was quite a bit farther from home giving me a longer commute, but more importantly less opportunity to stop by the house by surprise for a few minutes some evenings when things at the station were quiet and I would be able to run out for an 'errand' or two.

There was almost never a slow period at this new station and I spent every shift elbow deep in blood dealing with gunshot wounds, stabbings and drug overdoses. This station was located in one of the worse parts of the city in a high crime area where highly trained trauma EMT's were a critical necessity. We were understaffed and overworked, with many of our veteran EMT's in bad 'burnout

. About half of the EMT staff quit and left the profession entirely during the two and half years that I worked that District. I worked five non-stop days that Thanksgiving holiday weekend with little more than occasional catnaps and almost no opportunity to phone Allison, let alone stop by the house and see her. When I got home, I did not like what I found.

The house was a wreck, bits of broken china and glass remained unswept in a corner of the kitchen. She appeared somewhat manic, alternating laughing and crying, demanding to know where I had been, and why wasn't I home with her? No answer I could give was satisfactory. Her kisses had the distinct odor of mouthwash and breath-freshener but 'No', she denied having anything to drink. My gut told me she was lying ... but I couldn't prove it.

Covert searching over the next three days failed to find any hidden liquor bottles, but I began to feel certain I just wasn't looking hard enough or in the right place. She did admit she had quit her job, but wasn't going to look for another one quite yet. She admitted to being out of sorts and wanted time to 'straighten her head out.' We didn't particularly need her income and her head certainly needed something ... I agreed without debate.

What should have disturbed me the most was that she was now skipping her regular AA meetings nearly constantly now.

Over the next month I saw more and more signs of the old Allison, her confidence seemed to significantly improve and she became much livelier, but she remained moody as if she had a number of things on her mind. The lingering aroma of breath freshener and strong mouthwash became a constant in our home. Whenever I got the opportunity I searched everywhere I could in the apartment and in her car but just couldn't find any hidden bottles stashed away. Something told me that I was missing something important but I couldn't put my finger on it.

Allison began to very much resent my new attitude of suspicion and the entire month of December started with a strain to our relationship that nothing seemed to alleviate. I admitted defeat to myself in proving that she was again drinking and let the matter remain dropped. By Christmas time I had pretty much decided the whole thing was just in my overworked and overstressed imagination. Then, on that New Years Eve day, Tiny showed up at my fire station wanting to take me to lunch and my whole world came crashing down upon me.